The pulse shows what energy is needed.  At the first visit, her pulse indicated that energy was in the lower part of the body so she often forgot small things, spoke slowly and occasionally repeated herself.  If you would like to see a similar case of Yin-Yang imbalance. You can see Joannie Hargadon’s case in the research profile.

 In her case the knee pain confirmed where her energy was needed along with the pulse that confirmed the type of energy needed.  The knee is a part of the body where three major energy channels pass through.  Knee pain can be a result of one, two or three energy channel circulation being obstructed.  In her case all three channels had some form of obstruction.  In a case like this, some elemental energies are in contradiction due to the controlling sequence, unraveling this lack of circulation in one channel must be done with consideration of the other channels.   In her case the primary energy channel that was blocked was her earth energy channel.  This can be assessed primarily through pulse diagnosis but also can be confirmed by finding out the location of the pain on her knee and which area is the most severe and recovered can prove the pulse diagnosis. As a result, oftentimes, the pulse diagnosis can give us the ability to predict the next place of recovery.  

Initially, her pulse showed the lack of Earth energy and the knee pain could be characterized by swelling  and pain in the front of her knee where the Earth Energy meridian is.  After the Earth Energy was recovered through her lifestyle  intervention, her pulse changed to showing the lack of Tree energy; the pain then moved to a different part.  During the lack of Tree energy pulse was shown, the side of her knee was painful  where her Tree Energy meridian is.  During the final phase of recovery, the lack of Water energy pulse occurred. Then, the back calf where the Water Energy meridian was painful. At the time of Water Energy meridian recovery, She was able to relieve the pain by throwing away the notion that the salt was bad for her and eating as much salt as she needed as well as eating Water Energy food such as black beans and seaweed. As the pulse changed, the pain occurred along the meridians, which corresponds to the energy needed, and this experience was an opportunity for Jang Seungja to learn the advanced course of Barun Maek on how we determine necessary energy by checking the pulse although she is the age of 79.

Jang Sungja’s original character is Earth Metal so when there is poor circulation along her Earth Energy channel it indicates a more serious problem.  Typically a person’s weak meridians and corresponding organs will almost always exhibit some form of energy deficiency like pain or organ dysfunction.  When a meridian that corresponds to the person’s original character is acting up it is an indication of a serious deficiency manifesting as illness or pain.  However, Luckily deficiencies along the meridians of original characters are the quickest to recover since the deficient energy was originally strong. However, the journey of recovery from other given weak energies would start after then. 

After a period of 24 months Jang Sungja’s  knee pain has recovered and she is fully able to walk around.  Her wrinkles have decreased as her middle layer of skin is now more robust and filling out her face and body.  Her face has taken a more round appearance consistent with her face’s original shape. 

Unique to her case is a large toe on her right foot that was severely burnt and crooked as a child.  The large toe has both the earth and tree energy channels that end at the end of the  toe near the base of the toenail.  To be based on the centerline of the body, the interior nail edge corresponds to the earth energy channel and the outer edge of the base of the toenail corresponds to the Tree Energy channel.  After two years of her Barun Maek research, the burnt big toe began to regenerate, heal and straighten even though the scar tissue of the burnt portion of the toe had not changed in over 60 years.  You can also see that the toe is pointing straight out instead of inwards towards the center of her foot as her Earth Energy recovered.  The toe gradually turned towards the center of her foot over the years as there was a deficiency in earth energy to balance the tree energy.  As energy circulation returned to the inner portion of her big toe along the earth’s energy channel it began to straighten.